Harness making devices for the automatic construction of cable harnesses, such as those used, for example, in “white goods”, are known from the state of the art. In harness making devices of this type, cables are pulled from a supply, usually a cable drum, in a desired length by a robot arm and introduced to connection devices, in which said cables are connected to cable connectors. Because the robot arm requires considerable operating space, it is not possible for a plurality of connection devices to be arranged close together. Thus, the known harness making devices generally cannot produce cable harnesses with especially short cable lengths.